How to Make Product Videos for Ecommerce at Scale

Your ecommerce product images show what an item looks like. Videos convey what it feels like to own it, from how a fabric drapes to the way a blender crushes ice. That difference is why 73% of online shoppers are more likely to buy after watching a product video.

Despite this clear advantage, many ecommerce sites today still use rows of nearly identical product shots on their display pages. How come? Because until recently, creating effective product videos was notoriously expensive and time-consuming.

But that’s no longer the case. Thanks to tech advances and AI, you no longer need high-end studio gadgets or a dedicated production crew to make your products come alive on screen.

This article breaks down what makes a great product video for ecommerce, which types drive results, and how you can start creating them quickly without massive production resources.

What Makes a Great Product Video For Ecommerce Brands

An ecommerce product video is a short, focused visual story about a specific item you sell. It shows your product in motion, highlighting its features, and often demonstrating how it works in everyday situations.

These videos give your customers the closest possible experience to inspecting a product firsthand or seeing a live demonstration in a physical store. They answer the unspoken questions that static photos simply can’t, such as:

• How does the fabric fall when you move?
• Does the clasp snap shut or stay loose?
• How big is this item compared to everyday objects?
• What does the product look like from different angles?

Take the Greats footwear brand, for example. In roughly 30 to 60 seconds, their product videos feature models wearing their sneakers in everyday settings and sometimes flexing the sole to show flexibility:

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You’ll usually find ecommerce product videos:

• On product detail pages (PDPs) to replace or complement image galleries
• On homepages or collection pages to showcase multiple items
• In emails or SMS flows as dynamic callouts
• In retargeting ads across TikTok, Meta, or YouTube
• As social-first product previews

For ecommerce stores (and especially fashion brands), product videos have gone from optional extras to becoming the baseline expectation to engage and ultimately convert buyers today.

Why Product Videos Work: The Stats and Shopper Psychology

When today’s shoppers land on your product page, they rarely read every word of your product specs. Instead, they scroll, skim, pause, and decide (usually in the space of a few minutes). A well-placed video meets them in that moment, showing them precisely what they need to know fast.

That’s one key reason why product videos consistently outperform text and images alone. In a 2025 study by Wyzowl, 84% of video marketers say video has directly increased sales:

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Another study from Saleslion found that when added to a landing page, videos have been shown to increase conversions by up to 80%, depending on the quality and placement.

Beyond persuading, videos also bring clarity. They show motion, texture, scale, and pretty much anything else you’d get from handling an item in-store. That builds confidence and lessens hesitation. For fashion brands especially, it shows true-to-life fit across sizes and body types.

There’s also the mobile edge. Over 75% of US adults spend up to two hours watching short-form video content each day. Video catches the eye quicker and doesn’t rely on zoom features or long copy. If your site is mobile-first, video is a smarter use of space.

The 6 Most Effective Types of Ecommerce Product Videos

What convinces someone to buy a face serum isn’t always the same as what moves them toward a carry-on suitcase. The best brands tailor their video format to the product and the shopper.

Below are six of the most impactful video formats in ecommerce today, each with a distinct purpose and a clear reason they work.

Demo Videos

Demo videos are among the most direct formats in ecommerce. They simply show how the product works. This approach takes out the guesswork and lets shoppers envision how the product fits into their day.

Brands like Our Place do this beautifully. Their Always Pan videos show someone effortlessly cooking, flipping, and pouring, making the pan feel versatile and ready for your kitchen.

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These demos are especially helpful for beauty, wellness, kitchenware, tools, and any product that benefits from being shown in use rather than just described.

360-Degree Spin or Motion Shots

For more tactile categories like apparel, accessories, or footwear, 360° spin or motion shots are great formats to adapt. They let customers get a sense of proportion and form.

You’ll often see this format on ecommerce sites like Allbirds, where shoes rotate slowly on a neutral background so you can see the sole, stitching, and profile, all in one seamless motion.

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Simplicity is the edge here. With just a few seconds of controlled movement, shoppers get the closest thing to holding the item in their hands.

UGC-Style Clips

UGC-style clips are everywhere now, and for good reason. They mimic what shoppers are already used to seeing on TikTok or Instagram. Things like people talking to the camera, unboxing something, or casually trying it out in their bedroom.

The tone is light and informal. These videos feel authentic, even when they’re produced intentionally to appear that way. Glossier, for instance, often uses content that feels pulled straight from a customer’s story: natural light, hand-held framing, and real skin application.

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Even when brands use AI avatars or scripted scenes, keeping the energy casual helps the content blend delightfully into social feeds and ad placements.

Try-on and Lookbook Videos

A pair of pants can look completely different on different bodies, in different poses, or under different lighting. Try-on videos address this by showing the same item on multiple models, walking, turning, and stretching, so shoppers can picture how it’ll work for them.

Brands like Parade have leaned into this format lately, often showing models of different body types wearing the same piece to help set expectations:

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Lifestyle Montage Videos

Lifestyle videos are more about mood and authentic storytelling. These clips place your product in a wider scene, be it a living room, a morning routine, or a quick weekend getaway. The idea is to make the viewer want to step into that world.

For example, Fellow Products often pairs close-ups of their sleek coffee gear with shots of a calm morning ritual: slow pouring, sunlight, and steam rising. The product is still the hero, but the feeling is what sticks.

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This type of video works especially well for home, wellness, fashion, and premium goods, where lifestyle aspiration plays a key role in buying decisions.

Feature Highlight Videos

Feature highlights focus on one specific selling point in a fast, punchy way. Think of it as a close-up with intent. It could be a magnetic clasp, a removable liner, a water-resistant zipper, or anything else that tips the scale in your product’s favor.

Bellroy, known for its streamlined tech accessories, often uses short clips that zoom in on hidden compartments or slick pull-tabs with subtle on-screen labels. These videos don’t over-explain. They just show the detail up close and let it speak for itself.

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Tolstoy: Your Platform for Ecommerce Product Video Generation

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Tolstoy is an AI video generation platform designed specifically for ecommerce and built to tackle the “scale problem” head-on. It connects directly to your product catalog, intelligently selects the best shots, and uses sophisticated automation to generate and publish shoppable videos in just a few clicks.

The results are tailored to your audience and look professionally shot:

• Fashion brands get try-on videos with AI models in different sizes and skin tones, complete with full usage rights.
• Product catalogs get 360° spins generated from existing photos.
• Background replacements turn basic white-background shots into lifestyle scenes.
• And on and on it goes.

You can also batch-create videos (like generating 50 videos for 50 products simultaneously), then review and approve from a single dashboard. You don’t need to script or edit anything if you don’t want to. Tolstoy handles it all behind the scenes using the most sophisticated software.

Not yet convinced? Why not check out some of our customer stories on Shopify?

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Plus, as an official Built-for-Shopify partner, Tolstoy offers direct integration. Everything is published directly to your Shopify store, email/SMS campaigns, and social channels with one click. Get in touch today.

Key Takeaways

Good ecommerce product videos go beyond looking nice to help shoppers close the gap between interest and confidence. They show, instead of telling. And in a world where attention spans grow shorter, a good product video can be the difference between “add to cart” and “exit tab.”

The brands winning this race aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets. They’re the ones who recognized that video creation is now more accessible than ever before and capitalized on it.

Tolstoy makes that part simple. You don’t need a studio-level investment; just your product shots. Our platform handles the rest, from video generation to publishing, all in one clean, automated flow. Start with Tolstoy for free today.